Though listed as Béatrice, Isabelle Huppert’s central protagonist is nicknamed Pomme. It’s not an inappropriate name, for she is fond of said fruit, and is regularly seen biting into one through the course of the film. With her trademark flame-red hair and freckles, Huppert couldn’t look less like an apple, but it’s one of the great performances, to these eyes just about the greatest she ever gave; no mean boast.

Pomme/Béatrice works as an assistant at a local beauty-hair salon, while living at home with her mother. To coincide with her eighteenth birthday, a friend takes her away to the Normandy coast for a break. In actual fact, the friend is more interested in getting away from her own relationship debris, and it becomes apparent that one of the main reasons she befriends Pomme is to have someone to talk at about her problems. While on holiday, she finds another man and thinks nothing of leaving Pomme by herself in the resort. Pomme spends her days alone but comes across a young arts student, François. After a slow courtship they sleep together, but then their relationship starts to unravel when it becomes clear to François that she isn’t at his intellectual level.

Let’s forget the apple analogy for the minute, for there’s an even more accurate analogy; less obvious, a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but significant all the same. Pomme is walking along a beach and she stops suddenly to crouch down and examine the seashell residue on the shore. She picks up a large shell and puts it into her pocket. Much later on, she takes the shell out of her pocket and places it atop a grave marker in a World War II cemetery. She herself is much like the shell, a void waiting for a substance that doesn’t come. When she undresses herself for bed, she is seen laying her nightdress out as if she’s going to be buried in it. When she finally undresses prior to making love, François removes the sheet to find her with her arms across her chest like an Egyptian queen awaiting mummification. She’s dead but breathing.

Watching the film one becomes aware of a deep influence here, that of Robert Bresson; the film shares Bresson’s rigorous form and understated naturalistic acting with a preciseness of mise-en-scène and meaning that is exemplary. Pomme goes from those crosses to rows of benches in the garden of a sanatorium, pretending to her ex- that she’s loved again since, but making it all up from posters in the inmates’ common room, wistful non-memories from posters of Greece. There are indeed similarities to one Bresson film in particular, Une Femme Douce; both films deal with heroines of great almost subservient, enigmatic passivity. Both are driven apart from their men by a gap in education and class. In Bresson’s film, the heroine jumps to her death, in Goretta’s she withdraws into that symbolic shell and an utter and complete mental breakdown. Unlike Dominique Sanda, whose performance was subservient to Bresson’s schema, Huppert’s work is of even greater subtlety. She’s average, an everyday nobody who people would walk past in a night club while she sits silently in the corner, neither wanting to be singled out or ignored, just existing. By the end, she’s reduced to the status of a zombie-like nun walking up and down cloisters as if by instinct alone. One shares François’ pain upon seeing her, but it’s that last shot that will shatter you, as she turns to the camera and beyond, beyond even the audience, as if looking through the window at an apple on a tree and letting her gaze transport her out of the here and now and into the infinite. A contentedness to be absolutely nothing; it’s truly crushing.

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Wonderful review of a fascinating-sounding film which I was completely unfamiliar with up to now (big surprise given the 70s list so far…). I’m especially intrigued by the use of a character who should not be “interesting” by conventional storytelling standards but whose story you, and by implication Goretta (and Laine) make me really want to see. Hope Sam has a copy of this…

Well I forgot to consider this one for my list… My recollection was it came out in the 80s. It is indeed an exquisite film.

Huppert as an ex-nun gets her revenge on men in Hal Hartley’s brilliant Amateur (1994) – a film I was thoroughly obsessed with in the early 90s. Huppert is a wonderful actress and gets sexier as each year passes – she is now 56. She is up there with Deneuve.

A quite excellent copy of this seems to be “available,” if you catch my drift, for those who are xvid-savvy. I am “acquiring” it now and would be happy to share with anyone, though unless you’ve got a ps3 or a divx/etc player you’d need to watch it on your comp.

Can’t wait to see…I’ll return to the review after I do with some further thoughts.

I caught this a few nights ago. I agree with pretty much the entirety of Allan’s fantastic review, particularly the poetic niceties, and Huppert’s performance. But, on first viewing I also detected a rather bristlingly sexist cynicism that distances me from the film the more I consider it.

Allan writes: She’s average, an everyday nobody who people would walk past in a night club while she sits silently in the corner, neither wanting to be singled out or ignored, just existing. By the end, she’s reduced to the status of a zombie-like nun walking up and down cloisters as if by instinct alone.

Yes, but there’s a middle section in there too that you neglect — after she and François get the hang of sex and shack up together, and before François’ college pals start incubating Pomme’s low self-esteem. In these scenes — especially one where she’s painting the small apartment she and François share — Huppert buoyantly depicts the bliss of new love with an undercurrent of optimistic tentativeness (since Pomme’s co-worker experiences heartbreak early on in the movie, the young girl is quite aware that things can go wrong).

Pomme is one of those girls — and they do exist, though my description will no doubt sound generalizing — for whom lovers are a power outlet: without one, they’re a sullen, lifeless coil. And while Huppert brings a great deal of complexity to the role, I couldn’t quite enjoy the trajectory of the story enough to find the film rewarding — but perhaps I’m focusing too much on the gender roles in the context of the post-PC 2000s? And I do enjoy other films that even I have to admit are more sexist than “La Dentellière”. I guess the question is: if you’re going to show a nubile young thing totally collapsing over pseudo-romance, why play it like a straight tragedy? Or is that, perhaps, the idea: to make the bane of teens cinematically portentous?

As you can see, I’m not married to any interpretation — any thoughts from others who have seen this?

Jon, I don’t see any sexism. I see loneliness and a sensitive soul, perhaps depressive, and a hurt so painful that withdrawal is natural. I also see love and empathy from the film-maker.

To the contrary, this sounds sexist: “Pomme is one of those girls — and they do exist, though my description will no doubt sound generalizing — for whom lovers are a power outlet: without one, they’re a sullen, lifeless coil.” To love and be loved, this changes a woman, she blooms, and achieves womanhood. On losing such a love some women move on stronger, while others never recover. Remember also this is a French film, and cultural differences mean something here.

Look at Bette Davis in Now Voyager, she blooms with love and can move on after it is lost. And again in All About Eve, in that wonderful scene where she is waylaid in the car in the snow (full credit to Joseph Mankiewicz’s script):

“Let’s not fumble for excuses, not here and now with my hair down. At best, let’s say I’ve been oversensitive to… well, to the fact that she’s so young – so feminine and helpless. To so many things I want to be for Bill… funny business, a woman’s career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder, so you can move faster. You forget you’ll need them again when you go back to being a woman. That’s one career all females have in common – whether we like it or not – being a woman. Sooner or later we’ve all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we’ve had or wanted… and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed – and there he is. Without that, you’re not a woman. You’re something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings – but you’re not a woman…”

Have not seen this film. Reading this thread, though, it strikes me that we’ve got quite the sausage party going on at Wonders. Any females hiding out there in the darkness willing to offer their take on the movie and its protagonist? Don’t worry, we won’t bite…

Great review!
This is a very good film. One that jumped Isabelle Huppert into the road to stardom. It is a very interesting and realistic film.
The ending gets me every time. Not to give anything away, but it is truly heartbreaking.
Seeing this film you can see clearly Huppert’s early talent. She is my favorite actress, so maybe I am basis. She gives a spectacular performance of youth and it’s vulnerability in this early work.
I know it is out on DVD in Germany. You can get it on VHS in the US and Canada, but it is expensive. I wish the Criterion Collection would release it out on DVD. I’m sure it would sell. It seems to be a favorite.

I love this film because it features my two very favorite actresses of all time: Isabelle Huppert and Annemarie Düringer. The latter has appeared in films by Fassbinder and some interesting Fifties German language films such as der 20. Juli and Der Mann vergißt die Liebe. Anyhow, La Dentellière does exist on DVD, but you’d have to know French or be able to read the German subtitles of this release. Look for Die Spitzenklöpplerin (the title it was released under in Germany) and you can get it on amazon.de or you will sometimes see it on ebay.de.

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Wonders in the Dark is a blog dedicated to the arts, especially film, theatre and music. An open forum is highly encouraged, as the site proctors are usually ready and able to engage with ongoing conversation.